


Here is a handful of glow

by harryanthus



Series: One Side Conversations [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble, Harry Styles Has Issues, Letters, M/M, Poetry, a lot of distractions, anxiety over growing up, grey hair and crying, harry is writing louis a letter, their relationship is vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26666269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harryanthus/pseuds/harryanthus
Summary: Louis is away, Harry writes.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Series: One Side Conversations [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940263
Kudos: 5





	Here is a handful of glow

**Author's Note:**

> this is a really short drabble i wrote at midnight. there is no plot to this being honest but this is just a 1000 something words of vulnerability.

_~~Darling~~ ~~Dear L~~_

_To my l_ _o_ _v e r,_

_Three nights. Three nights it has been since I had a body beside mine, another heartbeat to echo my own. Three days since you left for reasons. I will be stubborn and deny it to call it work. Deep down you know the reasons for my defiance but we will pretend you don’t. We are good at that, aren’t we?_

_I have not begun writing this to mock you nor give you any more grief than I do in my daily texts. I find joy in frustrating you. Sometimes, only sometimes I promise, cross my heart and hope to die._

_Writing is much easier when I don’t have to see your face, when I hide behind my words and ink and paper, oceans away, my mind refusing to conjure up any image of your distraught face._

_I imagine you to be distraught when you are away from me— it is for my own sanity. I do not know if I picture a smile or a grimace on your face when you receive this. I like to think I make you happy._

_Yesterday I was scrubbing at a curry stain from the copper bottomed bowl. ~~I did not use the gloves I bought to wash it felt unnecessary~~.One moment I was struggling, grinding my teeth trying to get the stain out and the next minute I ended up with soapy forearms and eyes brimming with tears._

_I have not told you this but the day you left, I was set on distracting myself and maybe trying out something new. I parted my hair into sections to put them into little braids— like the ones your sisters would do. My hair is thinner, I’ve noticed that and for the most part, I tend to not think about it much but that day, I found a few grey strands mixing with my browns._

_Panic welled up in me at once, I spent half an hour trying to see if they were indeed grey and devoid of colour— they were. I cried, I cried a lot. It seems silly when I say it out loud but it is not. I am not that old, I haven’t hit the age where a dusting of silver across my temples is good. I am still in my ripe youth._

_I had been battling with the stain and out of the blue I remember the section of grey in my head and it was miserable. I was so miserable and all alone in the cold house and all I could think was “the floors are too dirty” and maybe I was gripped by hysteria for a while because I kept laughing and laughing and cried for a bit._

_That happened while you were away, I wish you were here to distract me for a bit. I could text you but the timezones don’t align well and the last thing I want is to render us both sleepless. I am sleepless enough for the two of us._

_I sat on the floor, soap drying and hardening the hair on my arms, fingers pruning and smelling of artificial lemons and alkaline but all I felt was this wave of misery crashing over me at once._

_I kept this in me for hours, it will be hidden in me until you receive this._

_I did message you, I message you the same every time. ~~Seldom do I let my emotions change the way I word my sentences. It worries one less person that way, doesn’t it?~~_

_I hope you think of me fondly, not every time but at least sometimes. Never give me the answer to this, I take my naivety to this as a blessing. I wrote a little, very wishful writing. I’m adding that below._

Goodnight I love you, _I type out when I mean please ask me to stay for one more minute and tell me you crave my company just as much as I long for yours._ Goodnight, sleep well, I love you too _, you reply back when you mean stay for a minute longer, I can’t part, not yet but neither of us are good with talking out loud so we take words for what they are and sleep with hollows in out ribs, shapes of each other carved out— feverish, fragile, fitting._

_I have developed this weird love for ribs and cages and hearts banging against the bone and cartilage._

_I write a lot about you. Most of it is me loving you alone. I look at the shape of your shadows running through the passages of my mind and softly ache._

_~~I am good with words~~. I said this before didn’t I?_

_Well, I lied. I am not good with words. Well, at least not the ones that matter. I can say a hundred words of no use but cannot utter a sentence of use to save my life. Maybe I do not want to save myself. Is that bad? I think so._

_I am second doubting every single punctuation that appears in this letter. I have no eye for grammar, I prefer the flowery prose. Easier to focus on the nonsense than the pressing issue._

_That is exactly what I have been doing. Truthfully I have so many words, so many letters, so many sentences I want to tell you, pull them apart from where they are stuck beneath my flesh and let you trace the carvings of them in my bones but I simply_ cannot _._

_I am far too scared. I don’t want to grow up. I want to be stuck in this moment forever but this moment is filled with paranoia and fear and cold. My hands are cold despite me writing this so feverishly._

_~~I wrote you a poem too~~. I write you lots of poetry. I rarely let you see it. I’m not very sure if I would continue writing if your reactions are not what I hope. _

_Let me rephrase that. I wrote a poem. I titled it cherry. Cherry was pretty, the poetry wasn’t. So I took that ugly anger and made it cherry, a red letter of hate._

_That is what the letter is. A red letter of hate. I hate no one more than I hate myself, I doubt anyone could hate me more than I am capable of hating myself._

_This poem, this is more to tell you how I fail to tell you. Does that make sense? Probably not, it is late, I am sleepy, I have a headache blooming across my temple, my stomach is full of unhealthy dinner which I will feel bad about in the next twenty minutes._

_My writing is getting more messy, more loopier, for my sake, I hope you can understand this._

you run out of words

and you’re desperate, painfully so

to make everything normal

you take these clusterfuck

of stars and stardust and shine

you take all of them and offer

them like a prayer, a sacrifice

here it is, “Here is a handful of glow”

here is everything you can’t 

put into words

“this is what i can’t say to you”

you take them, you don’t

and all you are left with

are these burnt fingertips 

“take my shine, my heart

my charred self and all

of my words and beyond”

you still can’t say all of that

“take me away and wash me

scrub me until I am pure again

or at least until I forget I’m not”

until you erase all of your sin

like an errant pencil stroke on white

_My mother rang me yesterday. I had yet to wipe away my tears, I had snot crusting on the back of my hand. I told her about it._

_All she said was_ oh sweetheart! _I began weeping again._

Oh you poor soul _— is it my soul that is poor, that is filled with misery or is it my body that is bearing all of it, it seeping into my soul._ Oh you poor soul, you feel so much don’t you, _and it is not a question. I feel so much and I am blessed enough that I can put it down in words and ward off an ocean of tears, swallow down the tide and let it rock my insides, rattle my heart around in my ribs for as long as I can._

_In a bit you will message me again and I will abandon this, wherever I leave it off, that will be the end of it._

_I will tell you why. With you, I am happier, I have someone to focus my love on. I am inclined to love, unfortunately I love everyone but myself. You make me happy and you have me addicted to it._

_See this letter as a little something born out of my withdrawal from you._

~~_It is my best intention to end it here._ ~~

_It sounded so pretentious. I am ending this here for our sanity._

_With longing,_

_your lover._


End file.
